During the final grand prix of last season in Valencia, the organisers of the MotoGP championship gathered around a table several riders who have been inducted into its prestigious ‘Hall of Fame’, a select club made up of some of the most illustrious names in the sport’s history.
At the dinner — also attended by Giacomo Agostini, Jorge Lorenzo, Casey Stoner, Freddie Spencer and Kevin Schwantz — Dani Pedrosa and Valentino Rossi sat next to each other, leading to one of the most engaging conversations captured on camera.
During the exchange, the Catalan explained in great detail to the Italian the strategy he followed to finally master riding in the wet after years of struggle, crashes and injuries.
Unlike most riders on today’s grid, Pedrosa would only train on a motorcycle when he felt he needed it, preferring to spend his day-to-day training time in the gym or out on a bicycle. That routine changed, however, after the crash he suffered in the 2008 German Grand Prix, on a track soaked by rain while he was leading the field.
The #26 had just completed the fifth lap and had already opened a gap of more than seven seconds over Stoner, a specialist in those conditions. It was a huge advantage for the Spaniard, who lost the front at the end of the straight and crashed heavily into the barriers, injuring his arm.
“Right there I told myself: enough! In the wet I didn’t really understand where the limit was,” Pedrosa told ‘Il Dottore’, who listened intently. “I decided I had to do something to improve because I thought I was always losing championships because of wet races. So one rainy day I took my supermotard bike and went to a karting track,” explained the rider from Castellar del Valles (Barcelona), who at the time was following the guidance of Alberto Puig - his agent and now Honda’s team manager.
“On the first lap I crashed. Then I tried to warm up the tyres, went out again and — boom! — crashed again. That’s when I realised it was impossible to understand anything because karting asphalt is very smooth. So, Alberto and I started thinking about what we could do,” continued the three-time world champion in the 125cc (2003) and 250cc (2004 and 2005) classes.
Puig lives in the hills above Barcelona, although he spends a lot of time at a family farmhouse in Cardedeu, on the outskirts of the city — an area surrounded by hills connected by winding roads.
“Whenever Alberto saw that a rainy day was coming, he’d call me and I’d head over there. We’d both put on our leathers and rain gear, take some money for fuel, and go riding. Up the road, down the road, one behind the other,” recalled Pedrosa, now a test rider for KTM, who retired from full-time racing in 2018 after 13 seasons in the premier class — all with Honda — recording three runner-up finishes (2007, 2010 and 2012) and 31 victories.
“From that moment on, I made the change, and I started getting podiums and even a win in the wet,” Pedrosa concluded.
